History of the Americas Topics
Welcome to IB Programme Course for Route 2 (20th Century), Higher Level History: Aspects of History of the Americas. This 2-year course will cover 1 prescribed subject, 2 Topics chosen from 20th Century World History topics and 3 Topics from our region of study--the Americas.
Please see the description o the three topics PASB students will study from History of the Americas described below.
Please see the description o the three topics PASB students will study from History of the Americas described below.
History of the Americas regional topics will be assessed in Paper 3.
Topic 9: Political developments in the Americas after the Second World War, 1945-1979
This post-WWII period in the Americas was a very interesting one filled with important changes. In the United States, we will study the domestic policies of US Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford and Carter. We will study the Civil Rights Movement and how different presidents dealt with civil rights, we will study the Fair Deal and Great Society programs for social welfare, we will also study different administration's economic policies and contributions to development. We will study the end of the Nixon presidency and its impact on the credibility of government. In Canada we will look at Canada's domestic policies from Prime Minister Diefenbaker to Clark, including Quebec's Quiet Revolution. In Latin America, we will study the Cuban Revolution and its impact on politics throughout the region. We will also look at the rise of populism in Latin America, especially as evidenced by the Vargas regime in Brasil and Peronism in Argentina and the rise of socialist governments like Allende's in Chile. We will also study the military regimes in Latin America from the 1960s-1980s (mainly in the ABC countries--Argentina, Brazil and Chile) that arose as a response to the perceived threat of socialism.
Topic 10: The Cold War and the Americas, 1945-1981
One of our 20th century topics will be an in-depth study of the Cold War as a competition between two superpowers--the United States and the Soviet Union. We will look at ideology, diplomatic movements, military activities and political actions that largely took place across Eurasia, Central and Eastern Europe and East Asia. The Americas are largely left out of this greater traditional Cold War narrative. However, from the very beginning, the Cold War had a major impact on the countries of the Americas--from Argentina and Chile in the south, to the Caribbean islands and Central America, to Canada in the North. Cold War pressures affected all countries in the Americas, and impacted both the domestic agendas of these countries and their response to international events.
In this unit, we will study Truman's containment policy and its implications for the Americas, the rise of McCarthyism in the US and its effects on domestic and foreign policies in the US, and the impact the Cold War had on society and culture from McCarthyism to school to houses to films to sports. We will also study the Korean War and US involvement in Vietnam and the war and its impact on the United States and the hemisphere. Eisenhower's policy of CIA covert action in Guatemala and the US reaction to the Cuban Revolution will also be studied. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, the use of the OAS to combat the spread of communism in the region, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Revolutions in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the funding of the contras and ensuing civil wars, Allende in Chile and the US role in Pinochet's coup, and the US role in military dictatorships in Latin America will be topics for study. Carter's emphasis on human rights and role in Central America and the decision to return the Panama Canal to Panama are also topics that will fall under our purview.
In this unit, we will study Truman's containment policy and its implications for the Americas, the rise of McCarthyism in the US and its effects on domestic and foreign policies in the US, and the impact the Cold War had on society and culture from McCarthyism to school to houses to films to sports. We will also study the Korean War and US involvement in Vietnam and the war and its impact on the United States and the hemisphere. Eisenhower's policy of CIA covert action in Guatemala and the US reaction to the Cuban Revolution will also be studied. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, the use of the OAS to combat the spread of communism in the region, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Revolutions in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the funding of the contras and ensuing civil wars, Allende in Chile and the US role in Pinochet's coup, and the US role in military dictatorships in Latin America will be topics for study. Carter's emphasis on human rights and role in Central America and the decision to return the Panama Canal to Panama are also topics that will fall under our purview.
Topic 12: Into the 21st Century, 1980-2000
This final topic in our study of aspects of History of the Americas brings us into the 21st century. I believe this topic is critical to your understanding of current political developments in the Americas. The political, economic, technological, cultural and social changes of the period were both evolutionary and revolutionary. In the 1980s, the world was a bipolar one split by loyalty to the USA or the USSR, in Latin America autocratic dictators and military regimes were consolidating their power, civil wars were raging in some countries, and economies were reeling under decades of ISI, protectionism and crippling foreign debt. By the year 2000, the Cold War had ended, the US had emerged as the world's sole superpower, Latin American countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru had successfully transitioned from authoritarian to democratic governments and globalization had radically changed economies, culture, the way we communicate, the environment and our concern for it, drugs and the fight against drugs, etc. Some topics that will be studied include: the administrations of US Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush (the elder), and Bill Clinton. ISI, dependency theory, neoliberalism, Washington Consensus, neo-populism and clientelism, Latin American debt crises, Sendero Luminoso and MRTA, Alan Garcia and Fujimori in Perú, the Dirty War, the Malvinas War and the end of the military dictatorship, Alfonsín, and Menem-Cavallo in Argentina, Uruguay's transition to democracy, Lacalle, Sanguinetti and Batlle, Chile's transition to democracy and economic development, and the Collor de Mello, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Lula presidencies in Brasil.